People have been translating communications from one language to another for over 2000 years. However, there is still no generally accepted method of assessing the quality of a translation or an interpretation of a communication.
Finding an equivalent word in a target language (i.e., the language into which a communication is translated) for each word in a source language (i.e., the language of the communication translated) is not always adequate due to nuances of words in the source communication, cultural variations between the source and target cultures, lack of a word in the target language that conveys the exact meaning of a word in the source language, and so on.
A translation of anything more than a simple communication such as a yes/no answer may only be an approximation of the source communication, because an adequate translation may require knowledge not contained in the source communication (e.g., the meaning of idioms, the norms of the source culture, etc.).
Prior art translation quality assessment methods focus on microtextual issues (e.g., word choice) rather than macrotextual issues (e.g., conveying the exact sentiment expressed in the source communication). To date there has not been widespread agreement on the criteria to use to assess translations and interpretation.
Prior art articles on the subject of translation and interpretation assessment include “An Approach to Translation Quality Assessment” by Geoffrey Kingscott et al., “Translation Quality Assessment: An Argumentation-Centered Approach” by Malcolm Williams, and “The Application of Argumentation Theory to Translation Quality Assessment” also by Malcolm Williams.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation published a translation quality assessment tool for health education materials in which translations were assessed based on priority focus area, readability, functional and technical accuracy, meaning, and specialized content and terminology.
There is a need for a method of assessing language translation and interpretation so that purchasers of translations may assess the accuracy of the product they receive, employers may determine the skill of their translators for job assignment and training purposes, and so on. The present invention discloses such a method.